Inkjet recording methods enable simple and inexpensive image production and therefore been used in a variety of printing fields. Among the inkjet recording methods, UV-curable inkjet method is known wherein droplets of inkjet ink are landed on a recording medium and then cured by irradiation with ultraviolet rays to form an image. Recently, the UV-curable inkjet method has been attracting attention for its capability of forming images having high rubfastness and adhesion even on recording media which lack ink absorbing properties.
However, image forming methods using the conventional UV-curable inkjet systems have the drawback of poor image quality due to failure to prevent combining of neighboring dots during high-speed recording such as single pass recoding using a line recording head or high speed serial recording. One of methods for preventing combining of neighboring dots is to add a gelling agent to an UV-curable inkjet ink. Stearone has been proposed as a gelling agent to be added to the ink (see, for example, PTL 1 and PTL 2).